Last Ashes to Fall
by HermaeusMora21
Summary: This is the telling of one woman's life. All the way from her escape from the hellhole known as Teltin Facility to the possible end of life at the hands of the reapers. Rated M for violence, torture, and possible future romance/sexual material (innuendos/etc).


A young girl, no older than eleven, is standing in the middle of a burning complex. Bodies lay strewn around the floor, and the alarms radiate throughout the facility, pounding through the hallways. The only other sounds are gunfire and screams, but she can barely hear anything over the pounding of blood rushing through her head. Thoughts of carnage filled her head with pleasure from killing someone for the first time. She had been fighting others her whole life, and the doctors had encouraged it by filling her with God knows what before throwing her into biotic arena fights with the other children. When she broke open the door to her cell she had immediately thrown her biotics into the guard outside, smearing the wall with blood and burns from the biotic residue.

Now she was left alone in the lab just outside her cell. The smell of smoke filled her nose with a burning sensation. After the initial guard she quickly dispatched the few scientists in the room. Their bodies didn't even have the armored protection that the guard had, which made them much easier targets. That didn't stop her from throwing all she had into obliterating her tormentors. Whatever she had done, it was obvious it started something throughout the facility.

Biotic children and guards are clashing all over the complex. The entire base has become a free-for-all death match. On one side were the security forces and scientists and on the other were a couple dozen biotic children who were scared out of their minds. It sounded like a brutally close fight. The girl then darted out of the lab with the thought of survival finally overpowering the bloodlust. Finding her way through the building was truly difficult. The few times she was let out of her cell she did not see much of the base, however, there had to be some way to get off of this living hell. While she was running across a walkway that overlooked the commons she spotted an aircraft on a platform about 200 meters from where she was. Below her the guards were getting pushed back though and right towards the hangar. If it weren't for those turrets putting down suppressive fire on the other kids she probably wouldn't make it.

She closed her eyes and started walking away from the children. She needed to escape. Nothing else matter. However, she heard clanging behind her, and her eyes flew open in response. When she turned around she saw a pair of the biotic children running towards her screaming something with their faces filled with more emotions than she could keep count. She couldn't hear them, but they couldn't mean her anything but harm. After all, didn't she just condemn them to death? Her fear response kicked in and she threw another blast of biotic power hurling right towards them. They both flew downwards into the fray, and as a result some of the other children looked up at her with a strange look on their faces. She could only call it horror. With only a second glance she darted for across the walkway towards the ship.

"No one ever helped me here," she thought grimly, "I'm the one who killed the guard outside my cell, and I'm the one breaking out. If the others fight back that's on them. I just need to focus on getting myself out." As she approached the end of the walkway she noticed three guards near _her_ ship. She flung a biotic blast with all her strength at the closest one before any of them could notice. When his body crashed against the metal of the ship his companions turned around. Their friend's blood had sprayed across them both, and his grisly remains forced them to pause for a couple seconds in both shock and sheer horror.

However, as soon as they collected their senses they both opened fire. The looked down their sights and stood side by side with a decent spacing between one another. It was like a maelstrom of metal as both assault rifles pumped out thousands of rounds of ammunition. She darted behind a metal walling to her right and hid behind it for cover. She waited for a lessening in the intensity of the gunfire and then used her biotics to rip the guns from their hands. She then reached out and picked up the one to her left and raised and flung him over the landings edge. The second one she pushed back until he hit the shuttle. She then threw him in the air and slammed him back into the ground. She heard the crunch of his suit as well as his scream and a harsh expletive. She then lifted him again and repeated he punishment until he went limp. However, in her haze she kept slamming him into the ground over and over with abandon. When her rage cooled down and she realized he had long been dead. She then made her way to the rear entrance of the ship with her hands shaking heavily and her head light from the over usage of her biotics.

"If I ever see the symbol or hear the word Cerberus again I swear someone else is going to die," she said with her jaw still locked in place, and her every muscle in her face twitching violently due to the mix of rage and biotic bloodlust. Her entire body was stained red with the blood of numerous guards, and parts of her hair were singed by the fires that the conflict below her created. She looked as if she just walked out of the gates of hell. Her small fragile body was off putting in comparison to the horror written on her face. She did indeed look like she just walked out of hell. However, the question was whether she did so as one of the damned looking for freedom or a demon hiding in the skin of a small child. The grim, merciless look upon her face along with her surroundings heavily suggests the latter.

She knew enough from listening to the guards chatter earlier about how to put the aircraft on autopilot. From there, she just hoped she would land somewhere at least mildly decent. As her ship took off she got an overhead view of the conflict below her. The other children were still fighting against the guards with both sides taking heavy casualties. The turrets had finally been brought down, and the deceased guards littered the landscape. Yet, dozens of children were scattered along with them, none of whom were older than thirteen. There was nothing but hatred and fear inside her when she thought of this place. It filled her, for the first time, with joy to finally be rid of her childhood _home_. The shuttle finally began to rise high enough for the base to begin to shrink in size, and when broke through the atmosphere it informed her that it would be two galactic standard days to an inhabited spaceport.

"At least there might be some way I can find help there, or at least figure out what to do," she thought hopefully. She rummaged through the ship and found some emergency provisions to last her the trip. She found a small restroom onboard and washed of Teltin's horror. She also began to cut her hair down to get rid of the burned remains of her hair, and it served a dual purpose in her mind, as her small body and short hair could confuse people into thinking she was male. She spent the majority of the time afterwards staring out the front window and gazing at the stars and planets around her. In comparison to the window in her room on Teltin the scene of outside the window of her shuttle was beyond exquisite. She was hopeful for the first time in her long miserable life. Eleven years she's spent being systematically tortured by Cerberus' experiments, and yet it had felt like an eternity. She had long thought this day would never come.

During one of the times she dozed off she was awoken by the sound of a light alarm going off in the cabin. It informed her that she was approaching the spaceport. She looked out her window and saw the spaceport in the distance. However, while it looked massive and quite impressive to the young girl, she also noticed it had probably seen better days. Teltin may have been hell incarnate, but it had a layer of glossy shine to it. In comparison, the spaceport looked as dull and dreary as the overgrown forests surrounding the base.


End file.
